World Cup Cricket (not to be confused with World Cup Cricket - a different game with the
same name) is now a Freeware (originally released as Shareware) cricket game for DOS by
Mark
Carter.

World Cup Cricket is a successor to Sticky Wicket.
It is based on international one-day matches played between the nine test playing
countries. For the first three years you play different tournaments with the aim being to
qualify (only the top 8 teams qualify) for the World Cup help every 4 years. Each
tournament is quite different and may require different tactics. Some are knock out
tournaments where you only get one chance where others are mini leagues. When picking your
team it is now made up of 4 batsman, 6 bowlers and a wicket keeper.

In control World Cup Cricket is very similar to Sticky
Wicket. When batting you get an overhead view of the ground and see the bowler deliver
the ball and the batsman hopefully hit it. You have no control over this part. Once the
ball is hit though you control whether to run or not and how many to run. At first this
will probably result in a lot of run outs but you soon master the quick single. The
criticism that there are only very few 2s and no real opportunities to run 3s still stands
and when bowling the computer still simply cycles through all his bowlers in 1 over spells
which is unrealistic. You can now though additionally set a batting strategy of Minimal,
Cautious, Standard, High, Maximum or Auto.

When bowling you have a choice of 5 fielding setting Orthodox, Defensive,
Attacking, Highly Attacking and Unorthodox. There is no option to define your own fields.
You select the next bowler to bowl and this time you only get the graphical view for
highlights (4s, 6s, missed chanced and wickets). You can only have 6 bowlers in a side but
the game is intelligent enough to prevent you bowling a bowler if it means one bowler
would be unable to complete his allocated overs.

There are options to see your standing in the qualification for the World Cup,
full averages (career and recent) and see your career record compared to every other
captain. When playing the World Cup you also get World Cup averages and records. There are
5 skill levels to keep you playing the game and provide a long term challenge.

World Cup Cricket is a lot of fun to play. I actually registered this program
without playing the shareware version as a result of reading a review in a magazine. It
may have dated a little bit nowadays but still runs fine on today's much faster PCs. I can
remember wasting many hours guiding England to World Cup glory when I should have been
studying.

The registration price of World Cup Cricket is £15. ** Update ** World Cup
Cricket is now Freeware. When you register you can play all the tournaments for as long as
you want captaining any of the 9 test playing countries and be able to save/restore your
position.